Thursday, October 04, 2007

Memory Lane and Red Hawk

It was a day to go down Memory Lane over in Belleville. We caught up on some caches around town and in the MetroPark. One of the caches was in the Hillside Cemetery, and it was like a blast from the past driving down the lanes of the cemetery because we recognized all of the family names...well 85% at least. We saw Phil's grave for the first time since the funeral when Dick was one of the pallbearers. Such memories! All in all it was an awesome morning. We ate lunch at Mr. Bill's, which is a lot different now than when it used to be Little Caesar's.

This evening we met John "Edward Applebee" for dinner at the Red Hawk Grill on campus. We really enjoyed his company a lot. He's actually younger than our kids - a lovely young man - interesting, intelligent, and thoughtful. We had a great time with him. He visits TC often because he has family there, and he was there last weekend while we were there. He told me that he saw this Subaru with Migo 1 on the license plate - I said "That was us!" He was behind us at a traffic light. What are the odds?

It's been another idyllic day.

Some of Dick's logs from Belleville:
10/4/2007 You found Walk Along the Paw Paw Trail (Traditional Cache)
This area has many memories for us. For 20 years we lived just outside the park entrance on Haggerty Rd. and the park was just through the fence in our back yard. What we recall most about this trail are the dramatic red buds in bloom in the spring and a large cluster of Jack-in-the-Pulpit . Today the cords seemed to be about 50 feet off but found it with the clue and some searching. Traded sigs, thanks for the trip down memory lane.

Found it 10/4/2007 You found METROPARKS: PARK EDGE (Traditional Cache)
This is probably the only one of the Metro Park series that we’ll do this year but since, for 20 years that we lived and raised a family on Haggerty Rd this was our backyard, we had to do this one. This park not only provided recreation and enjoyment for all of us, it also provided summer employment for two of our kids and a place where we taught kids how to drive. We have walked, biked, and skied all of the trails in the park and so had a pretty good idea where this cache would be. Found it today about 3, signed the log and left a chalkboard set.
Thanks to the Metro Parks and their staffs for their support of this quirky activity of ours.

Found it 10/4/2007 You found On Owen Street? (Traditional Cache)
Wow! Memory Lane. 50 years ago when we were first married, what is now the High School building was K-12. Neither of the Jr. Highs existed. All three of our kids attended South and many of our friends taught here. We haven’t been back for over 15 years. Thanks for the memories. TFTC

Found it 10/4/2007 You found Jagman's Smallie spot! (Traditional Cache)
What an improvement this park is. When we came to live in Belleville and had an apartment a few blocks east on Liberty 50 years ago, this was the site of a ramshackle building, the oldest in the town. Here, in the 1950's the Doanes bought, sold, restored, and recycled old car batteries. The excess overflowed out the back and down along the lake shore. This park is a fantastic addition and a much nicer first impression of the town. Thanks for making us aware of what the city has accomplished in the 15 years we have been gone.

Found it 10/4/2007 You found Where's the Beef? (Traditional Cache)
Fun concept, we like it. we'd copy it but we don't have any Xways in our neck of the woods so we can't. When we lived in the subdivision north of here in the late 50's, there was just a stop sign at the intersection of Quirk and the Ford Freeway. If the traffic was heavy, you could take Belleville Rd. where there was a traffic light. Thanks for the memories.

Found it 10/4/2007 You found No Bones About It 2! (Traditional Cache)
For the first 35 years of our married life we lived, taught, and raised our family in the Van Buren Public School District. In all of those years, except for a few funerals, we rarely visited this place. In the course of our careers we taught multiple thousands of students. In addition, we worked with and associated with many hundreds of adults. We have found many cemetery caches before but this is the first time that we knew many, in fact the majority of the names. As we drive along the lanes we see the grandparents, aunts, and uncles of our “kids”. We also viewed the resting places of parents we met, colleagues with whom we worked and even some of our former students. This was truly a drive down memory lane. We signed the log and left a Geopin. Thanks for giving us a push to visit here this afternoon.